INTERNET INSTRUCTION VS. INTERNET ENHANCED INSTRUCTION: SHOULD EARTH SCIENCE BE TAUGHT SOLELY ONLINE?

To complete the lab portion of Introduction to Earth Science, students in the internet section must come to campus seven or eight times a semester. In addition, students must complete exams on campus in proctored testing centers. Would students do as well if labs and exams were completed at home as well? While some students indicate that they would prefer online exams on the final course evaluations, most prefer coming to campus to complete the labs. 58% of the 48 students who responded think that none of the labs should be done online, whereas the other 42% think that some labs could be completed online. Students admit that the minimal attendance required seems to help them keep up, and many feel they would not be able to complete the labs without the help of their peers and the instructor. As a result, the lab has remained a face-to-face component of the internet section.

The reasons to not allow online testing mostly rest in instructor preference for closed-book exams, and the guarantee that the student's exam is his or her own. In addition, a discrepancy in performance between internet and traditional students warrants the high standards set by on-campus testing. Analyses of exam grades show that online students fall behind their traditional counterparts on most of the exams. Only 25% of internet students earned a grade of A or B on the exam (n=91), compared with 51% of students in the traditional classroom (n=177). Poor performance by internet students seems to result from lack of preparation; on final course evaluations, 55% of 66 students surveyed report to spending less time than needed on the course. If students fall behind at times, student performance on specific final exam questions is about the same for students in traditional and internet sections, suggesting that internet students may catch up by the semester's end by revisiting material from previous exams. Allowing online, non-proctored exams may artificially inflate exam grades, which would a) prevent the instructor from knowing that material hasn't been learned, and b) develop complacency in the student, who might not review or relearn difficult material.